PEKIN — When a family deals with fears that an aging parent with dementia might disappear into the night, a price can’t be put on peace of mind, a medical foundation spokeswoman said Wednesday.

Autistic children also tend to wander, often at night and toward water, said another at a news conference revealing a new search tool the Tazewell County Sheriff’s Office will use in such emergencies.

The office now is equipped with Care Trak, a system using bracelets equipped with battery-powered transmitters and tracking antenna to find wandering medical patients.

“Time is a very critical factor” when police go in search of Alzheimer’s patients or children afflicted with autism, Sheriff Robert Huston said at the Tazewell County Justice Center, where a dozen deputies underwent training on the new system.

The Peoria County’s Sheriff’s Office adopted Care Trak early last year for its new Search and Rescue (SAR) team in the wake of an Alzheimer’s patient’s death. The victim remained missing for a week before his body was discovered in a wooded state park.

Care Trak has recorded an average search time of 30 minutes for patients equipped with the bracelets emitting individually designated radio signals, Huston said. The detecting system covers a mile on the ground and five miles from the air, he said.

Tazewell County’s entry in effect doubles the web’s area capacity in conjunction with Peoria County, said Lt. Mark Molleck, supervisor of that office’s SAR team.

“This is big,” he said during a break in the deputies’ training session that he led. “We can work together and double our search resources.”

The equipment comes at a cost. Tazewell County paid $5,000 for two telemetry tracking devices, while the Peoria Regional Chapter of the Autism Society of America donated $900 for the three bracelets the county currently has available, Huston said.

Three bracelets won’t cover the need for the devices, he acknowledged.

The Tazewell County office will follow the lead of Peoria County, which has 19 available bracelets, in seeking more donations from organizations.

Individuals also can donate to the sheriff’s office as a means of obtaining bracelets for their loved ones, Huston said.

The three available bracelets already have been assigned to patients, Huston said. People interested in obtaining one should contact the office and present a physician’s recommendation for its use, he said.

Theresa Kuhlmann, spokeswoman for the Central Illinois Chapter of the Alzheimer’s Association, said discussions are underway with Woodford and Fulton counties to join in the Care Trak web, while Knox County and the Quincy area are using similar systems.